


forty-nine years (and we'll wait forty-nine more)

by itsagamefortwo



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Gen, but nothing explicit, feyre & tamlin are just mentioned, there's vague mentions of what amarantha makes rhys do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 12:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsagamefortwo/pseuds/itsagamefortwo
Summary: 16 little snapshots into the Inner Circle during the forty-nine years Rhys was under the mountain.'If someone asked her to recount certain years in her long life Amren wouldn’t be able to tell them anything.But she knows she will remember every detail of the last forty-five years for the rest of her life.'
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	forty-nine years (and we'll wait forty-nine more)

> **Year One –**

  
Cassian could still hear his voice echoing in his head, still hear that finale order from his brother. _No_, not his brother. It was an order from his High Lord, an order that left them with no other options but to follow, no room to question or plot against it. He slumped further down in his chair, eyes unfocused as he stared at the rug, trying in some desperate attempt to change this situation they were now stuck in. 

The prick hadn’t let any of them go with him to the party, had told them all to stay in Velaris because the Court of Nightmares would do. He had probably known it was trap from the very beginning.

And he had gone anyway. 

The self-sacrificing bastard. 

“What do we do now?”

Mor was the first to break the silence from her spot by the fireplace where she had frozen when the message came through, her face pale and voice quieter then Cassian could ever remember hearing it. None of them answered, because all of them knew there wasn’t an answer to give. 

That Rhys had left them all with no choice but to stay where they were. 

“_The protection of Velaris is tied to all of you, leave and risk the safety of our people._” 

They couldn’t leave. Couldn’t go and help him. Couldn’t even communicate with him. All they had was that final order, message – it was a god-damn _goodbye_.

Because he didn’t think he would be leaving that mountain alive. And he had left his people in their care. 

“We do as he asked. We protect this city.” 

His eyes snapped over to where Amren stood in the doorway, her silver eyes already on his as if she had sensed the words already forming in his mouth. 

“He left us with a job. And we will do as he asked.” 

“She’s right,” but Azriel wasn’t looking at him, his eyes were on Mor who had opened her mouth to argue, Cassian could see her readying for a fight, and could see the exact moment when she gave it up. When she realised they were right. “We keep things going until he comes home.”

None of them said what they were all thinking. They let those four words hang in the silence of the town house. 

>   
**Year Three –**

  
Sometimes, after a full day of putting out fires – figuratively _and_ literally – Mor would stumble back to the town house and forget, for a moment, that Rhys wouldn’t be there. Hadn’t been there in three years. Probably wouldn’t set foot back there for a long while yet.

The first time it had happened she had almost cried when she remembered and had been grateful the house was empty for the first time in months. Now she felt nothing but a dull ache in her chest that she had quickly become accustomed too. But she made herself come back to the house each night, just in case. 

They all knew the odds were against them. Knew that the chances were slim. Knew that Tamlin had stopped sending his soldiers across the wall and had apparently given up their one shop at freedom.

But while Amren glared and Azriel stood in silence and Cassian _trained_, _trained_, _trained_ as a way of coping, Mor stayed in the town house as if a silent promise to Rhys that they hadn’t given up hope. Not yet. Not ever.

**Year Five –**

Rumors had started leaking out from Under the Mountain a few months after the spell had been cast, but it had taken Azriel five years to get any of them confirmed. Getting spies into Amarantha’s court hadn’t been the hard part, getting them out alive had been the trouble. But he had finally done it, and as they sat around the dining table at the House of Wind and he reported on his findings, Azriel for once wished he hadn’t succeeded. 

“So it’s all true then,” Mor murmured eyes on the wine glass stem she was rolling between her fingers and he kept his hands locked around the arms of his chair. 

“All of it.” 

“He must have a reason for it.” Cassian's anger was always the easiest to spot and sometimes Azriel wished he could be as free with his emotions as his brother was. Could let everything that was burning inside him out into the world in busts. But he also knew that kind of freedom came with a price. 

“Of course he’ll have a reason for it! He doesn’t do anything without good reason, and this…” Amren trailed off, shaking her head in a way he hadn’t seen from her before. “He has _always_ done what he must to protect his court.”

The predicament they were in now was proof enough of that.

“He’s a self-sacrificing bastard and the next time I see him I’m going to wipe the floor with his ass,” Cassian muttered and Azriel was inclined to agree. The things Rhysand was willing to do to keep them safe had his shadows clinging closer to his shoulders and a pit opening in his stomach. 

> **Year Seven –**

Amren understood why he had done it, understood and accepted it. But that didn’t mean she agreed with it. With sacrificing himself and making it so none of them could leave to help him. And it hurt them all in ways Amren hadn’t known she could be hurt. In her long life she had never known a court like this one, and knew if they survived this, she would probably never know one again. 

They each brought something different to the court, she knew, and she knew that in the coming years they’d all be tested in ways that could lead to them breaking. 

She wasn’t about to let that happen. 

Rhysand trusted them to keep the city safe, to keep each other safe. And he trusted her to keep them together, to keep them going.

So she would do it, would offer her stilted comfort when it was needed and would knock sense into them when the comfort didn’t work. She was his second in command and would make sure he had a court to come home too. 

_If_ he came home. 

None of them dared utter the thought, but they all knew it was a possibility. But they were the Court of Dreams and dreams couldn’t start without a little hope she supposed. So they would keep going, and she would keep patching them up when cracks appeared. 

> **Year Ten –**

They had officially surpassed the longest amount of time Cassian and Azriel had gone without seeing Rhys.

They spent a whole day doing nothing but drinking in the House of Wind.

> **Year Thirteen –**

It had been a _hard_ year, Azriel thought as he stood on the bridge over the Sidra, staring out at the sea stretching beyond their borders. Stared out at the sea to stop himself staring across the land as if he could see all the way to the centre of their country. 

People were restless. They wanted to _do_ something. To _help_ in some way. But there was nothing any of them could do. Four of the most powerful fae in the world, and they were trapped in their city unable to help anyone outside of their walls. Sighing, Azriel turned away from the sea and began the walk back to the town house. 

He almost hated Rhys some days, hated him for the situation they were in, hated him for not taking any of them with him, hated him for having to go through this alone. Though, perhaps not quite as alone as he had been. 

Nuala and Cerridwen hadn’t come back when they were supposed too. 

It was almost enough to ease a fraction of his worry. Almost. But not enough. It would never be enough for any of them so long as he was _there_ and they were _here_. 

He nodded at people as he passed, strained smiles on their faces, on everyone's face. A hard year, and harder years were to come he knew.

> **Year Twenty –**

“Do you remember that year we stayed at the cabin and he had that vendetta against the trout?” Mor said from her place sprawled on the couch, legs across Cassian’s lap and head propped up on her hand. 

A smile tugged at Azriel’s lips as Cassian let out a bark of laughter. 

“I’ll never forget the look on his face when its tail slapped him in the face,” Amren grinned, but there was no menace in her eyes like when she grinned at others, it was just a melancholy kind of happiness. 

“I’ve never seen someone so determined to kill a single fish in all my life.” 

It was easier to talk about him now than it had been even two years ago. Reminiscing like this – half way to drunk and sinking further into couch cushions – it almost felt like some kind of therapy for all they had been through, all they had left to endure. To be able to _smile_, to _laugh_, it was what he would have wanted, Mor was sure of that. 

“Did we ever tell you the story about him falling out of the tree when we were training?” Cassian asked, and at Mor and Amrens head shake he launched into the tail with Az chiming in at intervals. She could almost imagine him sitting in the chair across from their couch, rolling his eyes at them all laughing at him. The thought didn’t hurt as much as it would have. 

> **Year Twenty-Three –**

Cassian stands opposite Azriel in the training ring, breathing heavy as he raises his sword a little higher and nods for him to start again. But Azriel keeps his sword down and nods towards the table set up in the corner with a jug of water. 

“We should take a break.” Azriel’s voice is quite but people would have to be stupid not to hear the order in it. Cassian opens his mouth to say something but is cut off by Azriel, “Working yourself into exhaustion isn’t going to help.”

He knows the shadowsinger is right, knows and yet can’t seem to bring himself to lower his sword or step away. Because he feels so _completely_ and _utterly_ helpless. And fighting, training, it’s the only way he knows how to deal with this thunderstorm of emotions crashing around in his head, his chest.

“Then what will help?” He snapped, finally letting his arm fall to his side and his blade point scrap along the ground. 

“Taking a break,” was the simple reply and Cassian felt himself deflate a little. 

> **Year Twenty-Eight –**

Amren had never liked Starfall, never understood how the people of this court could be comfortable to stand and watch as things fell through the sky without knowing the _how_ or _why_ of it. 

It was unnerving. 

So she spent it alone in her loft apartment, goblet of blood in one hand and a book propped up on her knees, but Amren wasn’t reading it. Her eyes had been fixed on the wall of windows opposite her bed as the first of the stars began to fall. She knew everyone would be up at the House of Wind by now, knew that despite everything, this one night a year the others couldn’t quite keep up the act of everything being okay. 

Knew this year would be a hard one because both the Illiyrans had hinted at her attending the party. Knew that Mor had talked about missing it. 

_Love_ had always been a slightly foreign concept to Amren and she wasn’t about to admit to anyone that what she felt for the Inner Circle was probably the closest she would ever get to the feeling. But on her own, in her quite loft, Amren could admit to herself she felt something. And perhaps she could show it for one night. 

With a soft snarl she snapped her book shut and left her apartment, within minutes she was inside the House and ignoring the nods and looks that the people of Velaris were giving here. In the many years that she had lived in the city, this was the first time she had attended a Starfall celebration. 

Azriel spotted her first, ever the High Lords spymaster, watching all that goes on around him. Mor and Cassian notice her as she approaches, the latter opening his mouth to no doubt make some kind of annoying comment. She growls at him, finger waving between the three of them as she stations herself between the spymaster and the general. 

“Do not say whatever you were about to. One night. Don’t think I’ll be making a habit of it.” 

They wisely keep their mouths shut, but she sees Azriel’s small smile, catches Mor’s glimmer of gratitude in her eyes, the outright grin on Cassian’s face. She does not like Starfall, never will like it, but for these people she will endure it for one night until the person they were all missing could take her place.

> **Year Thirty –**

Azriel stops sending his shadows and spies Under the Mountain after thirty years. They no longer need someone on the inside to confirm or deny the rumours. 

They had long since discovered they were all true.

> **Year Thirty-Five –**

It took all of Amren’s control to stop Cassian from leaving the cities boundaries, from flying right over the walls and straight to Steppes. 

“It might not affect anything if only one of us leave!” He was gesturing behind him, chest rising and falling quickly as his _anger_, his _frustrations_, his _fears_, worked their way through his mind. Amren let him rant. “They need to know that just because Rhys isn’t here that people aren’t still watching them! That there aren’t still rules. I can’t just – just do _nothing_.” 

She waited until he was done, watched his wings tuck in tight to his body and his eyes lose that gleam of need for action. 

“You leave this city, boy, and you might damn us all. I know, I _know_ you can’t stand it, but do you think the rest of us can either?” An eyebrow arched up though she didn’t leave him chance to respond. “We have all been dealt a shitty hand here Cassian. _All_ of us. Don’t let his scheming and game playing be for nothing.” 

Amren waited until he has turned and flew back in the direction of House of Wind, most likely to hunt out Azriel to find a way to burn out his anger, before she turned her own gaze towards the North. Towards where reports of Illyrian warbands going rouge were starting to filter down. 

She wished for nothing more than to be able to hunt them down herself, but they could not leave. And not for the first time, she cursed Rhysand. For saving them all and yet damning them at the same time. It was a lose-lose situation and she was starting to fear it would be one with no end.

> **Year Thirty-Seven –**

For the first time in five hundred years Mor doesn’t celebrate Starfall. Refuses to leave the Town House while everyone celebrates the one night she knows Rhysand had loved the most.

Even Amren saying she would attend isn’t enough to change her mind.

> **Year Forty –**

Turning sailors into farmers had been a long and hard process, but one Cassian was happy enough to help with as it gave him _something_ to do. Something to focus his mind on and to use up his pent up energy and anxieties. 

It had taken them all awhile to find a rhythm that worked, to even seen their hard work amount to anything. But he couldn’t deny the flutter of pride he felt when they made their first harvest or his sense of achievement when their second was even better. 

Working alongside them, it helped Cassian remember why they were there. The job Rhys had give them all. 

And they knew it too. As the ship captains dug up the earth next to their crews, they knew they were only safe because their High Lord had made it so. And they knew how much it killed his Inner Circle, Cassian knew, because he wasn’t as good as Mor or Azriel or Amren at hiding his frustrations. And he had seen them looking at him with gratitude when they thought he wasn’t looking. 

So Cassian came to the fields whenever he had time, or whenever he needed to remember why he couldn’t leave. And the farmers who used to be sailors thanked him for the help.

> **Year Forty-Four –**

Azriel knew that Tamlin had stopped sending his men across the wall a long time ago, but yet he still sent his shadows out across the courts to see if anything had changed. Torn between hoping for him to succeed and hoping for him to fail. For him to know some of the pain that Rhys was enduring. 

It had never been an official thing, the feud between Night and Spring, but each court knew of it, though perhaps most of them didn’t know of the true cause. But it was still strange to be hoping the male who had helped kill two people he loved very much would be their salvation. And Azriel knew that how ever he felt about the matter, Rhys would be feeling it ten times worse.

So Azriel sent his shadows through the courts every few weeks in hopes of hearing something. Hoping the High Lord of Spring would do something _right_, would find a way to save them all. But he did nothing. Year after year, decade after decade. Sitting in his court as if he had given up. It was just one more thing to hate him for. 

> **Year Forty-Five –**

If someone asked her to recount certain years in her long life Amren wouldn’t be able to tell them anything.

But she knows she will remember every detail of the last forty-five years for the rest of her life. 

> **Year Forty-Nine –**

They hear the whispers about a human girl who had entered Under the Mountain days after the fact. Hear of the bargain she made with Amarantha, made out of love for Tamlin. Mor doesn’t know what to do with herself for three months. Time seems to move slow, even slower than the last forty-nine years have gone. 

The fates of all their lives lie in the hands of a human girl in love. And Mor prays to the cauldron it will be enough. That she will be enough. 

They don’t need to hear the whispers to know what is happening this time. Because in the quiet they can _feel_ it in the air as seven High Lords powers are released back to them. It kills them not to be there in the Town House to wait for him, but Cassian has to go to the war camps and Azriel has information he needs to find and Amren finds herself unraveling wards around the harbour, but Mor is there. 

Standing in the town house, feet shuffling on the rug as her nails tap along the fireplace mantel. Waiting. In the same room they had all been forty-nine years ago when they had last heard his voice with their orders. 

She feels his power, sees the star flecked wind that carries him through the world, smells that citrus scent that has clung to him since childhood. And then he’s there. Rhysand. Stumbling out of his darkness, eyes wide and mouth partly open. Mor is by his side in an instant, hands going to his shoulders to steady him and her mouth opening to say something – anything, she doesn’t know what – when he beats her to it. And says the three words she had been least expecting. 

“She’s my mate.” 

It hangs in the air between them and Mor doesn’t know what to say, and neither does Rhys it seems as he sinks to his knees, taking her down with him. 

“Who?” She manages to ask, her eyes searching his face, his body for any signs of injury. Not letting herself consider if he means _her_. But the name he says isn’t one she knows but from the pain in his voice, the fear in his eyes, she can guess who she is. A mortal girl in love with another.

“Feyre.” 

“Oh Rhys,” she whispers and does the only thing she can think to do. She hugs him tight and feels him doing the same. Forty-nine years worth of emotions fighting to be heard first. But he is back, and they have the _time_ now to say everything they need to say. Tell the stories they all have to tell. 

“Rhys.” 

Neither of them had heard the others arrive, but they break apart to see Amren and Cassian and Azriel stood in the archway to the living room, the pure relief on their faces she is sure mirrors her own. 

> **Year Forty-Nine pt. 2 –**

It hadn’t been the entrance he had intended to make. But the feeling of that bond snapping into place and then the emotions of seeing his _home_ again, of seeing _Mor_ again – it had overwhelmed him. All the things he had lost hope of seeing again suddenly in front of him. His joy had been too much when mixed with this sudden feeling of loss. 

For forty-nine years Rhysand hadn’t let himself think about this place for longer than seconds at a time. Hadn’t let himself even _dream_ of coming back here, of seeing them again. He had been ready to die under that mountain. Ready for it all to be over. But he was still alive. And he didn’t know what to say, and it seemed neither did any of his friends as they all just stared at each other. And he could _feel_ that love and relief coming from all of them and was sure he was radiating the same emotions back. 

He had told Mor. And he could feel her wanting to ask more questions, wanting to know everything. He could tell they all wanted to know everything. But Rhysand didn’t know where to start. He opened his mouth and closed it again. It was Cassian who spoke first, swallowing once before speaking.

“I think – I think we’re all going to need a drink for these stories.” 

Rhys nodded once, accepting the hand that Azriel was offering to him – he had forgotten, hadn’t even realised he had fallen to his knees – and squeezed back just as tightly as the shadowsinger. 

“Welcome back High Lord,” Amren smiled at him, a genuine smile that he knew many would never see. And Rhys could feel his emotions spilling out, couldn’t seem to catch or reign them back in as he looked at his friends, his _family_. 

“We may all need more than one drink,” he said, feeling his lips twitch upwards just a little even as he tried to ignore that tether hidden within him that longed to be felt and acknowledged. There would be time. Time for that later. For now he needed to be here, needed to know they were okay.

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! okay so ive just reread this series and fallen in love with these idiots all over again so here i am, writing fic again. this started out as just going be like a '5+1 starfalls with the inner circle' type thing and then just. ended up as this instead? not really sure how or why but here we are y'know. (but anyone is still interested in a 5+1 starfall fic let me know because i have ideas for that too)
> 
> anyway!!!  
hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos are appreciated!! mwah xox  
you can also find me on [tumblr](https://tangledstarlight.tumblr.com/)


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